


Remotely Suspicious

by EndoftheLine_36N79W



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Jake Peralta, Coming Out, F/M, Fluff, Healthy Relationships, Humor, M/M, What would Leonard Bernstein do?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 19:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16582442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EndoftheLine_36N79W/pseuds/EndoftheLine_36N79W
Summary: John Mulaney is the victim of a strange and unusual crime. Jake investigates. What would Leonard Bernstein do?





	Remotely Suspicious

“Peralta!” Terry calls across the squad room.

Jake pushes off his desk and rolls his chair over to Terry’s desk. “Seeeergeant Jeffords.”

Terry stares at him. “Interview room one, there’s a young man who needs to report a home invasion.”

Jake scrunches up his face. “Just a home invasion?”

“Trust me, it’s your kind of case.” Terry hands him a stack of blank forms. “Do me a favor and walk down the hall, okay?”

Jake grins, “Roger roger.”

//

Jake’s not looking up when he enters the room. He drops his clipboard on the table and sits. He looks up. “Holy cannoli, John?”

The man at the table covers his mouth. “Jake Peralta,” he exclaims. “Well it’s been years.” 

Jake shakes his head, grinning. “I can’t - you live here?”

“I’m new in town. My wife and I moved here last month,” John says. “My wife. I married her,” he says conspiratorially. “She’s much too good for me, you know.”

“Is she Jewish?”

“She is!” John exclaims. “Her name is Annamarie and she wouldn’t come with me because she doesn’t believe a crime has been committed.”

“Tell me more,” Jake says, tense with antici… pation.

“Well,” John says, “the thing you have to understand is that our dog, Petunia, is very particular. She only eats one kind of food, and she eats at eight-thirty in the morning and at four-thirty in the afternoon. But we have to pretend to eat dinner before we feed her because otherwise she’s under the impression that she’s the alpha, and of course Annamarie is the alpha. You see, we had a dog psychic come to the house.”

“Of course,” Jake says, grinning.

“So when I came home yesterday it was four-fifty-seven,” John explains. “So Petunia should have been hungry but she wasn’t, and there was a bowl in the sink. But see we don’t actually eat out of those bowls, ever, because it’s the fancy bowls that you never use.”

“Sure,” Jake nods.

“Someone ate out of it,” John says. “And unless Petunia has learned to open cabinets that are much too high for her - she’s a French bulldog - it was not Petunia.” He sits back in the chair and spreads his hands. “Someone came into my apartment and ate out of my wedding china and fed the dog.”

“Was anything missing, or…”

“Yes,” John says pointedly. “Every remote in the house is gone. The remote to the tv, gone. The remote to the tv in the bedroom, gone. The remote to the air conditioner, also gone.”

“That’s pathological,” Jake says, rapt.

“Even the remote to the fan, which we never use, but always keep in the top drawer of the desk,” John says. “Gone. And, you can’t tell anyone this, Jake, but my secret pair of reading glasses, which I keep hidden behind my gym clothes, are gone. Jake, no one knows about the reading glasses. I’m not old, you know. But I am in that phase right before old, which is gross. I’m always sweating. I’m damp right now! I don’t think it’s anything serious, but isn’t it, though? Not even Annamarie knows about the glasses, Jake.”

“You go to the gym?”

“Well, no,” John admits. “But I might,” he enunciates.

“So how did you notice the glasses were missing?” Jake asks.

“Well,” John says, circumspect. “It’s not that I needed them, you know, but I was going to read the ingredients on my - on juice.” He stops. “Prune juice. To see if there was any added sugar.” He purses his lips.

“Okay,” Jake says. “Well, I’m going to need to ask you some more questions, so can I get you something to drink?” He twists his body to face the two-way mirror behind him and calls, “Gina?” After a moment she opens the door and sticks her head in. “Yes, Jakey?”

“You remember John,” Jake says.

Gina winks at him lasciviously. “Oh, I remember.”

John chuckles. “Hi, Gina.” He waves. It’s a little gay.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” Gina asks.

“One black coffee,” John says ominously.

“He’s kidding,” Jake says. He looks at John, “No way you drink black coffee.”

“No,” John laughs.

“Get him a Jake coffee,” Jake says. “Two Jake coffees.”

“Gross,” Gina says as she leaves.

“So do you want to file a police report?” Jake asks.

John sighs. “Well, I don’t know,” he says. “I want to know, you know, who came in the house, how they got in, or I’m never going to stop thinking about it.”

Jake nods. “Okay, well, we’ll fill it out and come look at the apartment. For security reasons.”

Gina comes back in. “Okay, boys, two Jake coffees.” She sets them down on the table.

Amy sticks her head in from the hallway, “Jake, I worry that it’s police brutality to let other people drink that,” she says primly.

Jake freezes. “Amy, darling, light of my life.”

Amy looks at him with apprehension. “Jake?”

“Amy Santiago, this is John Mulaney,” Gina introduces. “John Mulaney, this is Amy Santiago, Jake’s fiancee.” She dances away.

“The inventor of the Jake coffee,” John says. “Four kinds of creamer in weak hotel coffee.”

Amy looks sideways at Jake.

“We went to college together,” Jake says, holding an awkwardly wide smile with his teeth showing.

She squints at him thoughtfully. “Okay, Peralta. Later.” She leaves.

Jake huffs out a sigh. “Oooh, boy.”

Gina laughs an evil laugh. “Oh, Jake, you haven’t told her!”

Jake shrugs, “Eeh. Not exactly?” His neck flushes.

“Oh, Jake, what a sweet boy you are,” she says patronizingly. She exits with a flourish.

Jake sighs and looks at John. “Okay,” he says. “I, uh, I need to get someone else to come to the apartment,” he explains. “Given the situation I think Amy’s the best because she’s very detail oriented but - I’m gonna go talk to her.”

John waves a hand in understanding. “I’ll wait here.”

//

Jake walks over to Amy’s desk. “Hey Ames?” he catches her attention with an affected high voice. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

“Jake,” Charles exclaims. “What did you do?”

“Butt out, Boyle,” Rosa says flatly. “Yeah, Jake, what’d you do?”

Jake glares at her.

Amy sighs, long-suffering. “Okay, Peralta.” She stands up and follows him to the evidence room.

He shuts the door behind them and leans against it, thumbs hooked in his pockets. “So John Mulaney,” he says.

Amy raises her eyebrows. “Yes? He’s reporting a break in, right? You went to college with him?”

Jake nods, shifting back and forth awkwardly. He fidgets and touches the back of his head. “Yeah. You studied art history in college.”

Amy nods and widens her eyes at him. “Jake, honey.”

“He studied English,” Jake says. “And did a lot of improv. Anyway, uh.”

Amy waits.

“Sometimes, when he did improv, I, uh, went to see him,” Jake says. “To watch improv. Voluntarily.”

“Improv? What were you, in love with him?” Amy asks jokingly.

Jake cringes and scrunches up his nose. “A little?”

Amy blinks.

“We dated.”

She blinks again. “So, the thing you wanted to try, with the -” she gestures suggestively. “It’s not like, something you never did before.”

Jake huffs out a laugh. “Right.”

Amy nods. “Okay, we’ll try it.”

Jake sighs hugely. “Oooh, wow, that was way less scary than I thought.”

Amy smiles, steps toward him, and hugs him. He relaxes, slumps against her and rests his head on top of hers. “I love you,” she says. “I’m very glad to meet your ex-boyfriend.”

He laughs, “God, so weird. So I need you to come to his apartment with me.”

“Okay,” she follows him out of the evidence room and back to the interview room. 

Gina watches them with a knowing smile.


End file.
